


Love's Bittersweet Torment

by phrenique



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 12:04:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14401770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenique/pseuds/phrenique
Summary: “But you, my dear Miss Stark, I’d bet a king’s ransom, your rose-loving heart claimed that boy since the very beginning. No, don’t shrug it off, I saw your face at the lake this morning. How long have you been denying yourself?”





	Love's Bittersweet Torment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annannette (fanetjuh)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanetjuh/gifts).



> Thank you annannette (fanetjuh) for giving me such leeway in the choice of theme and setting. I hope you enjoy the story!
> 
> Thank you to the organisers of alternatesongs2018 for their excellent work.
> 
> Thanks to A, who always has an ear to lend and advice to give when I'm writing.

Night was thinning around the edges when Sansa once again came to a stop in front of her looking-glass. 

In its attempt to reach the horizon line, the full moon had lost its strength, and now, it peeked through her opened window in the guise of thin tallowy wisps. But for the moonlight, the room was dark. 

At midnight, by candlelight, she’d faced her cheval-glass - tilted slightly to allow for better vision - and she’d brushed down her hair; her hand had moved independently like some purposeless pendulum that’d swung up and down instead of left to right. 

Obediently, Sansa’d kept her gaze pinned to the shallows of her mirrored counterpart the whole time. Though in vain were her efforts so spent; her fated one had not come. Her mother would want to know that come the morning.

She’d lasted no longer than half an hour, her scalp growing tender under the ministrations of the stiff boar bristles. 

Then, instead of retreating to the comforts of her bed to sleep, she’d wandered around the house for hours. Like a lost soul, she’d roamed the upper levels until the soles of her bare feet had burned her like the summer-heated ground by the lake; the wooden floor below them wasn’t half as soothing as the lake’s cold depths had been the day before.

It had already gone four hours on the clock when she’d finally returned to her rooms. Dawn would soon be breaking, she had to hurry. 

Even so, she still lingered in front of her murky reflection. In the darkness, her eyes shone out from the lattice of shadows that formed her face, the spare moonlight having concentrated all its strength therein. They remained dry, in spite of the tight ball of anguish steadfastly pressing against the back of her throat. 

Today was the last time, she’d sworn it. 

There would never be another chercherie arrangement, she’d told her mother the previous day. People had been going through life without finding their soulmate for centuries, Sansa’d said, face bathed in tears, and they were none the worse for wear. She would not waste yet another year submitting herself to the same Rituals that had failed to bring forth the awaited answer. Her mother should commiserate and accept Sansa’a misfortune, she’d said, after all up to her widowhood, Lady Stark had led a perfectly content married life beside a man who had not been her soulmate. That had got her slapped. But Sansa hadn’t begged forgiveness, and she wouldn’t still.

From far away, through the open window, came the first crowing call of the nascent morning. Time had moved on carelessly while she’d been lost to reverie. 

Shrugging on a thin pelisse over her bed shift and hurriedly putting on slippers, Sansa went out of her room, descended the stairs, collected what was needed from the kitchens and then left the house through the servant’s entrance. 

She had no fear she’d be observed in such a delicate state of dress. Every man, woman and child of the household had been given special dispensation to linger in their beds past the usual waking hours. Today was a Ritual Day, Sansa’s day, and her chances at finding her soulmate couldn’t be spoiled, she bitterly told herself.

Outside, the fading coolness of the night air smoothed down like a balm over her worn-out mind. Sansa let herself revel in the act of simply walking through a fragrant garden swathed in late-June blooms. The barest dawn guided her way and the cobble-stoned alleys were not kind to her feet, shod in flimsy slippers as they were, but what would be more taxing on her body was yet to come.

She turned the bend and saw it come up at once. The old well, dug up by her father’s grandfather, was the centre around which her garden had been carefully brought about. Generations after, on Ritual Days, young girls of the family would still come here and draw out water using the strength of their own hands. 

Sansa put down the pail she’d been carrying. Her fingers flexing hard on the uneven surface of the stone-covered lip of the well, she took a moment to appreciate the task rising ahead of her. Then, she grabbed onto the thick rope and started pulling. The weight of a full bucket could reach almost fifty pounds, and she felt them acutely; her feet started to slip from under her and her back quivered and tensed spasmodically. In spite of it all, Sansa shouldered the pressure and held on.

Once she got it raised, she dipped her pail in the wide leather bucket and filled it with chillingly-fresh water. She broke the silk cord around her throat from which a pierced silver shilling hanged and dropped the coin within. 

The unsettled water shimmered finely in the weak dawning light, and Sansa peered uneasily into its depths. Her fated one’s face held itself at bay, of course. Sansa sighed and rubbed at the itching skin on the inside of her left arm. Her hands were throbbing. 

A chorus of warbles accompanied her on her way back: the blackbirds, the robins, the greenfinches were all up and ready to sound out the alarm on the arrival of a new day. She lingered in front of her favorite bush of China roses, eagerly drinking in the resplendent sight, twigs drooping under the weight of the blushing-pink fragrant flower-heads. She’d often dreamed as a child that its blooms would be threaded in her hair the day she’d cross hands and heart with the one meant for her. “Silly dreams for very silly girls,” Sansa whispered.

In the kitchens, she used the bellows to reawaken the banked fire. Having removed the silver token, she poured out water to heat. Using a silver spoon she took honey from the jar and she spread it on her lips - from this point on they would remain sealed under the glaze until she drank the tea. Honey to draw out your honey, Sansa’s old nanny had whispered to her when she’d first started the Rituals. 

She’d have her tea in the kitchens, since her mother wasn’t around to urge her to behave like a good little miss. How small was her rebellion, how unimportant! Women in love risked far more daily in her gothic novels.

Tears pricked at Sansa’s eyes while she gathered the necessary amounts of each herb to be steeped into the teapot: parsley to ward off bitterness, sage for longevity of love, rosemary for strength of memory and thyme for a love discovered. 

Restless, she paced about the kitchens during the five minutes needed for the herbs to flood with their energies the boiled well-water. Then she strained the Ritual tea and poured it in a China cup. Sansa smiled despite herself. She was becoming an old hand at this.

She left the replete cup sitting on a side table as she went up. She didn’t have to make it, let alone drink it, but she would. Let her mother see the tea dregs and be satisfied Sansa was following the Rituals to the letter.

Quickly, she changed her clothing, putting on loose morning garments for which she wouldn’t need her maid’s assistance to fit in. She tied her hair with a ribbon, but otherwise left it flowing freely on her shoulders and back. The looking-glass was beckoning her again but Sansa resisted the pull. 

She was already as late as she dared be. The woman she’d meet for this latest chercherie arrangement, her last-ditch attempt at seeking out her soulmate, was newly-arrived to the district and of foreign origins. Jeyne Poole, Sansa’s oldest friend, had very nearly stumbled from fright when Sansa mentioned who she would be seeing. Rumors of vices that daren’t be mentioned in polite society trailed after Cersei Baratheon like thunder after lightning. Her lady mother must be getting desperate, Sansa thought privately and was glad of it.

Down in the kitchens, she gulped her tea, all the while licking her lips in quest for more of the honey to alleviate the pungency of its aftertaste. Then she flew out of the house, certainly not waiting to see if a vision of her beloved would manifest.

Although not the most avid of walkers, Sansa found herself enjoying the trek that led her down the curve of grassy hill that separated the manor from the dependency Cersei Baratheon had claimed for a residence while she served as a chercherie guide.

The door-knocker felt heavy and cool under Sansa’s fingers and the resounding bang was almost unbearably loud for such a gentle morning. The door opened so swiftly that she had the sudden feeling the other woman had been lurking behind it, somehow aware of her approach for quite a while.

“You’re late,” Cersei Baratheon remarked in a clipped tone. Still looming over Sansa, she leaned in and seemed to inhale her scent. Sansa startled back, her heart leaping into her throat. 

“At least you’ve readied yourself adequately. The parlor is through there, you’ll go directly and change into the dress I’ve left out for you.”

“I couldn’t, a parlor isn’t…” Sansa didn’t seem to find her words readily in front of this fearsome woman. “Your house is yours and I can’t…”

“At the present, I have no visiting guests and there are no servants about. Don’t play the little fool about it. A girl in search of her soulmate should jump at the opportunity of a perfect Ritual day, especially one growing long in the tooth such as yourself.” 

Cersei Baratheon was a cruel woman and evidently she derived great pleasure from it.

But she didn’t know Sansa, if she thought her bullying would back her into a corner. Sansa had nothing to lose, after all.

“You will not address me in such a manner, Madam, I will not stand for it,” she said in what she hoped was a tone at once both dignified and firm. “I’m not a child to be led about.”

Silence stretched between the two of them while Cersei Baratheon regarded her in a rather peculiar way. It made Sansa feel like she was a very small animal that had just provided her with an unexpectedly amusing trick.

“Let us see then, dearest most honourable Sansa Stark. While we stand here, chattering about propriety, the sun will have fully risen, and the Solstice Ritual Day’ll be ruined for this year.” 

Cersei Baratheon grinned down at her, sharp canines reminding Sansa more of a snake’s fangs than a wolf’s. “I’m not sure you’d mind it though. Isn’t that an unexpected surprise.” The final lilt signaling a question posed was missing; she’d made her sentence a statement. 

Sansa shivered. This woman, who saw too much and who read too much in what she’d seen, frightened her.

“I’ll…,” Sansa swallowed around her clumsy tongue and tried again, “I’ll go change. We won’t waste the day.”

“Yes, you do that.”

With this curt rejoinder ringing in her ears, Sansa fled to the room indicated to her. Waiting there was a dress of rough-spun hemp, brown and unremarkable outside the fact it presented no visible seams or stitches. 

It fit Sansa perfectly. It also barely reached her calves. Squirming in disquiet at the thought of leaving the safety of the parlor clad solely in it, she suddenly felt thankful that at least the dress’ sleeves were long and narrow enough to tightly encase her arms up to her elbows.

Cersei Baratheon, waiting impatiently, was in the same spot where she’d left her, near the still opened front door. Yet Sansa stopped and gaped at her, much like a simpleton might. Gone was the woman coiffured, made up and so sharply dressed it must’ve taken her hours to reach that level of perfection. In her stead there was now a woman closer to her middle-aged years than the bloom of youth, her face still fair but not unwrinkled, her loose golden hair shot with silver. She wore the exact twin of Sansa’s dress and her feet were bare.

“There were no shoes in the parlor,” Sansa said, rather lamely.

An amused puff of laughter was her answer, then Cersei Baratheon motioned her to be quiet and follow her. 

There were no words to be exchanged between the two of them from this moment to when they would return. The Ritual demanded total silence for the next part.

The Ritual also demanded they be swift and thorough in their travels and that the walk go unmarked by man, bird or animal. Otherwise, the risk of failure in the evoking a soul-mate’s apparition would be too great. 

Up till now, the only variation from the previous years seemed to be Sansa’s state of dress and lack of footwear. That couldn’t count for much, and despite the acuity of this woman’s gaze, Sansa would eventually escape this unscathed. It was the last Ritual Day she’d go through, she’d sworn it.

Her playing role in all of it was to quietly gather wild flowers, any ones that caught her fancy. So she did, amassing blooms, some fragrant and others not, starting as soon she’d left Cersei Baratheon’s house. In the forest, flowers were a scant find so she used the time to closely observe the woman forging ahead. 

Her actions were those Sansa anticipated: the match-finder would search out all the little corners of undisturbed grass. After locating them, she would then dampen pieces of never-worn white linen, drawing moisture from the dewy blades. 

Sansa lost her frown. There were no novelties here, no variations that could prove dangerous to her interests, so she ventured further and further away from the other woman in the search for new blooms.

Pebbles kept poking the tender skin of her feet and she stumbled over tree roots more than once as she moved further into the woodland. Blood welled up from the small cuts and then dried, ignored. Sansa’s nape dampened from what little sun-heat passed through the vigorous foliage that crowned the forest trees. Her arms felt heavy from the weight of the flowers but it was a reasonably sweet ache.

She’d lost her way, Sansa realized as she was approaching the lake. Here, the cool air held a more chilling quality and her skin tightened painfully in response, even where it was covered by her dress. She needed to rejoin Cersei Baratheon.

She’d started on her way back, when she heard a dry rustling become louder and louder just in front of her. Something, someone was coming at a speed and making directly for Sansa.

Her sudden panic having overwhelmed her head’s feeble suggestion that she find and hide behind any massive tree trunk of which there were certainly plenty around, Sansa bolted.

She ran as fast as she could manage on bare feet, she ran until she felt like she was inhaling air straight from a dragon’s fiery breath. She ran until her legs finally gave her up and she fell to the moss-covered ground. Unmoving, she listened carefully, ears pricked up, for any foreign threatening noise. None came. Sansa sighed.

She’d dropped her flowers right from the start and for a moment she fiercely regretted it. But they were a sham, everything was a sham, and Sansa was a liar. This Ritual Day didn’t even count, so its efforts couldn’t really go wasted. 

She shakily got up, wobbling like a newborn foal trying to stand for the first time. She’d torn her dress; a big gash rose from under her left armpit, traveled over the curve of her breast and lower to her belly. She’d need to apologize to Cersei Baratheon for ruining it, and a more disagreeable woman she’d never met. What a miserable day!

But it would be the last one Sansa would be submitted to, she had to take heart in this. Freedom was truly a touch of fingertips away. No one will begrudge her it. After all, she’d tried so very hard to find her soulmate. It was simply not meant to be.

So entranced by her daydreams was Sansa, that she only perceived she was near the very edge of the lake, when she saw Jon’s head surfacing from its waters. 

In an effort not to cry out, she bit down roughly on the fleshy part of her hand. The shock of him trapped her breath in her lungs and nailed her feet to the ground. Any moment now, Jon could look up and see her. But moving seemed thus far removed from her abilities; she couldn’t even manage a decent crouch to attempt to conceal herself. 

Ignorant of her internal torment, Jon swam at his leisure. Long lean strokes cut into the lake’s stillness and made him travel forward, his submerged body moving as swiftly as any fish might. He turned abruptly, and she caught a glimpse of the powerful muscles of his back shifting beneath skin that was just beginning to veer to bronze under the touch of the early-summer sun. 

She felt faint. Her heart pounded ferociously not only in her breast, but in her ears, at the base of her throat, at the juncture of her hips. She squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn’t be made privy to this. 

Oh, but why would Jon be here at this hour! Her brother as Earl of Winterfell was too lenient on him, Sansa thought angrily. 

Her eyes flew open. As expected, she couldn’t even muster herself to command her senses to stop tracking his figure.

Jon made another turn, his legs splashing around water with abandon, this time heading towards dry land. He’d left his clothing behind on the shore, Sansa had little trouble spotting it now. And if she could see that, it meant… No, she wouldn’t look, she mustn’t look! 

He emerged not twenty feet away from her. 

Cold shivers chased after the hot flashes that’d inundated her body and then they switched places and tormented her anew; summer and winter were fighting a battle inside of her. Every part of her throbbed until she felt like she was surely falling into madness. 

He was beautiful! Breath-jarringly beautiful. A creature as perfect as him surely could not exist, because perfection came from unicity and Jon was without question unique. 

Those slender shoulders and arms that he’d used to pick her up and twirl her when they were children had gained the muscular vigor of a young man who earned his life by the strength of his hands. Those sinewy legs that he’d used to win races against all the Stark siblings, Sansa included, had lengthened and widened and grown into the agility and grace that was expected and desired in expert horse riders. 

His torso was an work of art by itself, with the well-contoured planes of muscles that came into sharp relief over his belly and the wide expanse of his upper back. His private parts, well, while she held no claim to extensive knowledge, no fault or flaw seemed readily apparent.

His face, while every bit as perfect as the rest of him, was a sore subject for Sansa. She didn’t linger on it; she could draw it from memory.

What held her attention, though, for the much too short time it took Jon to clothe himself, was the smooth blank canvas of his skin. Such flawless flesh, devoid of imperfection or marking of any kind, what a mockery to the less fortunate!

Twin water drops fell silently on the fist pressing against her mouth. More wet her lips and she licked them off unthinkingly. She tasted salt. 

She’d been crying, silently, unaware, the way adults become accustomed to. She felt wretched and small. No person should be made to endure this, Sansa thought, furious with herself and with everyone else.

Her blood boiling, she started to go after him. But he was already on the move. Long-limbed strides took him away from her until his figure melted and eventually disappeared into the surrounding forest.

She sank to her knees, her reason regained. No, gratefulness was what she ought to feel. Jon hadn’t noticed her. If he had…

What felt like claws caught and tightened on her shoulder from behind, and then a smooth palm slid over her mouth, smothering her scream. 

Frightened, Sansa looked up and into the face of Cersei Baratheon. The other woman looked forbidding, as if she were sculpted from snow at the height of winter. 

She jerked Sansa up and, without releasing her hold on her, she dragged her along. They followed the path of destruction Sansa had left in her wake as she was being chased by her would-be attacker and soon enough, they were reaching the clearing from which she’d bolted. 

Her armful of wildflowers stood undamaged where she’d dropped it on the ground. A few feet away a doe grazed peacefully on a small patch of greenery. Sansa stopped in her tracks, arrested by the sight. 

Cersei Baratheon prodded her and when Sansa resisted, she pushed her forcefully forward. Responding to the ruckus, the doe raised its head and fixed its molten honey gaze on them. The Ritual was broken.

Released from its spectre, and feeling as light as the flame of a candle dancing in the night, Sansa almost waltzed to her disheveled bouquet. The doe had returned to its grazing, seemingly unafraid by her antics. Gathering it all up, Sansa returned to Cersei Baratheon’s side and struggled to keep her smiles in check.

And so they went back, as silent as they had come, back to the small house down the hill from the manor, where Cersei Baratheon would have the dubious honour of being the last chercherie assistant Sansa would ever need.

She didn’t even mind being directed to the parlor to wait for further instruction. Sansa knew what would ensue, and sure enough, the lady of the house soon brought her a basin in which dew had been wrung out from her pieces of linen. Rose petals and tiny sprigs of lavender floated within.

Cersei Baratheon left the room and Sansa went through the Ritual of washing her face and neck in the readied concoction, without knowing why she should bother. The Ritual was broken after all. But maybe her host would not be paid for her trouble if Sansa behaved like a spoiled child and refused to acknowledge the slight chance the Fates might still be kind to her.

She felt calm and detached about the whole endeavour, so she decided she could afford Cersei Baratheon a little leeway. When the lights were extinguished, the shutters closed against the sunlight and only a small candle guttered on the mantlepiece, Sansa approached the room’s only looking-glass and stared in its depths.

Something moved in the shadows lurking at her back and then a figure strode forth and Sansa met his eyes in silvered sheen. She looked at his face for a long time. Maybe, in her own way, she was finally saying goodbye. 

The windows reopening was the sign Cersei Baratheon had been waiting for and so she stalked into her parlor like a storm waiting to break. 

“I didn’t see anything,” Sansa said in a subdued voice, gesturing half-heartedly towards the mirror on the wall. “Five years I’ve wasted, for hope that never delivers. ” She lifted her gaze and met her host’s without flinching. “I want out of it. My mother will listen if you tell her there’s no use to this, that my case is hopeless.” She swallowed. “Please help me, Lady Baratheon.”

At that, tears flooded with salt her eyes and mouth yet again. They were real enough; she was weary, her feet ached something fierce, but the worst was the empty cold place in her chest, where her heart had gone missing. 

Please let this be the last day, Sansa silently implored the other woman, willing her to hear the plea and be merciful.

“My dear child, what have you been doing to yourself?” Cersei Baratheon’s words were kind, even as her features remained aloof and inflexible. 

Oh, everything was such a muddle. Should Sansa entrust her future to this stranger? Despair had guided her steps with the fast reckoning of the cornered animal, but she was tiring so quickly. Her reasoning lacked clarity, she could feel it. How she longed to run away and leave everything behind!

“Come with me, child. We’ll rummage some chocolate and cakes, shall we?” Her host then took hold of her left arm, and placing it in the crook of her own, led Sansa towards the kitchens. 

“We won’t stand on tradition, since a kitchen table is as good as any other kind, servants lacking. Well, sit yourself, my dear, and if you will, please arrange those flowers of yours in that porcelain vase. I do so detest untidy things.”

That brought Sansa out of her stupor, and horrified, she reminded herself of the state of her dress. She jumped up. Begging forgiveness from Cersei Baratheon for her ruined garment, she offered to change right away, all the while pulling valiantly on the fabric to neaten it a bit.

“Nonsense,” her host exclaimed and went about arranging their breakfast, “You do those flowers now, my dear, and we’ll see about mending that dress.”

Taking every stalk between her two hands and looking carefully over each flowerhead and floret in turn, Sansa then cut them to length. The matter of displaying her bouquet to its advantage proved a refreshing challenge, and she found herself humming as she poked and prodded them into submission.

“Here,” Cersei Baratheon offered her a heavy-looking pitcher that Sansa lifted gratefully and poured water from into the vase. 

“They won’t keep, of course, picked flowers rarely do but it’s a handsome enough bunch.” 

Sansa’s heart sank; this woman knew where to cut and she did it in such an indiscriminate fashion. For the first time, she wondered if ice-hearted Cersei Baratheon had so been shaped by the loss of a soulmate. Maybe that’s what lied in Sansa’s future if she too compromised on…

She shivered and her host, mistaking the source of her discomfort, passed her the promised cup of chocolate and patted her hand. They sipped the sweet liquid in silence, each lost in her own head. 

“I don’t know much about the country around here,” Cersei Baratheon started, “but you seem well-acquainted with it.” Sansa nodded without speaking. 

“So, these flowers of yours, I’ve never seen the likes of them. Do you favour them? What do people call them?” She played with the drooping floret of a Jacob’s ladder while she waited for Sansa’s answers.

“I can’t say they’re my favourite flowers, I enjoy mostly roses. How funny, but I can barely remember picking these out. The morning feels so distant to me now, much like a dream. Yes, exactly like a bad dream,” Sansa said. 

“Anyway, this is Jacob’s ladder, and Nigella,” and on she went touching them, as she named them. “And that is Orpine.” 

Cersei Baratheon smiled. It was the secret sort of girlish grin that made her look like a mischievous maiden. “Do you believe in magic, Sansa Stark?” she asked. “Real magic, one that would bring a cher and a chérie together?”

“No, I don’t,” Sansa’s reply was firm and unwavering. “For obvious reasons.”

“Soulmates are magic.” No shadow of doubt darkened Cersei Baratheon’s eyes as she spoke. 

“The mystery of the Fates’ choices remains that, a mystery, but it is magic nonetheless, above human comprehension. Years from now, Deo volente, we could have a different process, a simpler, more truthful solution to bring soulmates together, not so mired in the superstitions of the Old Age.” 

She sighed and hooking her fingers in the split riding high on Sansa’s dress briskly tore away the entire left sleeve. “A process that’s mayhaps not so easily gamed by tricksters who should know better.” 

A weary chillness issued within her heart and foundered Sansa straight through. Cersei Baratheon knew she was a liar. Nausea gripped a fist around her throat. 

Surely, she ought to run away? She tried to get up, but her legs felt faint with weakness. She swallowed convulsively what little moisture was to be had from the dry well of her mouth, and lifted her gaze towards the other woman.

“What?” The jagged quality of her voice made Sansa wince.

Resting her chin on her joined hands, elbows at right angles to the table, Cersei Baratheon’s mouth hadn’t lost its curve. She took a moment, then began speaking in a lilting tone:

“Jacob’s ladder and Orpine and Nigella? They make a Jon without an H, a somewhat rare name, no? As in maybe Jon Snow, the very nice stable boy who met me at the Town Inn the day before yesterday, and brought me here at your mother’s orders? Does he use an H in his given name?”

“He’s a groom, not a stable boy,” Sansa replied simply. She marveled at her enduring resolve. Here she was, skating on dangerously-thin ice with this woman, and her only answer was a quibble; meanwhile, waves upon waves of drum-like noises built and crashed in her ears, her blood moving wildly.

“You would know.” Cersei Baratheon’s eyebrows arched mildly.

“He’s not my soulmate, he can’t be. He’s never appeared to me in any looking-glass, I don’t understand what you’re trying to prove here,” Sansa said, lowering her voice to a whisper, so she could avoid drawing attention to the slight tremble of her jaw that wanted to set off her teeth chattering.

“You, Sansa Stark, are a liar.” Rising, Cersei Baratheon crossed the small space that separated them and after subduing Sansa’s efforts to stop her, she forced Sansa’s left arm up with one hand and with the other she touched her mark.

Sudden fury restored Sansa’s legs, and she wrenched herself away. Angrily rubbing away at her marked skin, she stood a few feet away and treated Cersei Baratheon to her coldest stare. She wouldn’t run away. Not until her situation was settled one way or the other.

“How could the flowers I’ve picked tell you about, about…” She found she couldn’t pronounce his name.

Cersei Baratheon laughed, a joyless sound, and for a moment her eyes turned glassy with the hint of tears.

“I was once like you. Young and foolish and in love.” 

She rolled her eyes and flung a hand out to dismiss Sansa’s quick rebuff. 

“Yes, in love. Even if you keep denying your fated one to everyone else, in your most secret heart, you’ve already accepted him. Otherwise, there would be no mark upon your skin, child. Lie about less irredeemable causes,” she said, kindness colouring her tone briefly.

“Your tells were obvious to me, Sansa, since I also gamed the Fates. Only I went the opposite way.” 

Cersei Baratheon took to her seat anew. Her voice remained level, but she lowered her gaze to the cooling contents of her China cup.

“You see, I lied about whose face I saw during the Ritual. I did it in the hope of tying to me a man who was not my soulmate. In my case there was no mark to be hidden, since I had accepted no claim.” 

She raised her eyes to meet Sansa’s. 

“But you, my dear Miss Stark, I’d bet a king’s ransom, your rose-loving heart claimed that boy since the very beginning. No, don’t shrug it off, I saw your face at the lake this morning. How long have you been denying yourself?” 

Flushing disconsolately, Sansa debated a long time whether to answer or not. Oh, but to release this poison from her soul for the very first time, wouldn’t it feel blissful? 

“I was little more than fourteen, when I caught a glimpse of him in my looking-glass. I wasn’t supposed to do the Ritual alone, but I was so eager to finally know the face of my fated one. So the same night when I grew up, at midnight, I brushed my hair and waited. It just happened. The mark appeared the following week.” She hesitated then asked in a voice that sounded childish even to her own ears. “Is there a cure to make it go away?”

“No cure exists, Miss Stark, for that kind of love. Why not accept it? The boy is handsome enough and an unremarkable social standing could be overcome where there’s such a strong claim. You would not be the first ones to…” 

“You understand nothing, Lady Baratheon,” Sansa cut her off harshly. Silence reigned, an uneasy ruler, for a few minutes, then she added: “I will not be finishing the Rituals today. Before I take my leave, I beg of you the secret of the flowers. Please.”

It was Cersei Baratheon’s time to pause. Sansa didn’t dare breathe.

“Have you never heard of the old saying that honey draws you to your honey? The same purifying Rituals you obstinately followed this morning: the tea, the honey, they kept your soul truthful. You unconsciously chose the flowers that would spell the name of your beloved, even as you lied about seeing him.”

“You have the right of it, my lady,” Sansa smiled bitterly. “I’ve done it before, now that I look back, but it was never used against me. Why now?”

“Once, it was a well-guarded secret used to ensure good faith in the chercherie process, a way to keep the seeker honest. Slowly though, with the pass of the centuries, it’s fallen into disuse, then became forgotten, as not many people dare game the Fates. Now, it’s obliged by rote by most in my trade, but not understood. I only knew of its hidden meaning because of my own downfall.”

“You were caught…”

“Just like you, by a woman older and wiser than me. It lost me forever the man I tried to cheat destiny for. So, heed me, Miss Stark, mend your ways and risk your heart before you’ve cause to regret not doing so. Soulmates really are magic, you just need to have faith.”

Those words stayed with Sansa, looping and encircling her scattered thoughts, as she started her walk way home. The sun was already high in the sky with no clouds for company, keeping the promise of a beautiful Summer Solstice. 

Her lady mother wouldn’t yet be waiting for her return, not on a Ritual Day. Sansa had now the luxury of spending a couple of idle hours away from any irrevocable decision she need take. 

She plopped down on a green hillock and set her eyes to the heavens. Answers could not be found there, but they were a beautiful sight nonetheless. “Magic,” she whispered, “soulmates are magic”. 

There’d been no renewed Rituals for Jon; he’d known the name and face of his soulmate for a long time, she was painfully aware of that. 

The fact had been all but shouted over the manor by an overeager Robb, not long after she’d received her own mark. “It’s a secret. They’re keeping it quiet for now, but later on, they’ll definitely wed.” Sansa’s heart had ballooned in her chest in fear, then elation: Jon knew it was her, Jon wanted them to wed. Her brother had taken care to burst it fully with the words that followed: “It’s Ygritte, but you mustn’t go around telling anyone, Mother especially.”

Jon and Ygritte were soulmates and Sansa was… well, she was only the spare. She’d taken too late in being born, and they had found each other first. It wasn’t an unheard of tale.

But his skin remained flawless and blank, the rebellious side in her insisted, trying to cloud her conviction. There was no soulmark on that beloved body, she’d confirmed it today. Jon hadn’t accepted Ygritte’s claim yet. There was still a chance he’d turn to Sansa. 

“How, you fool,” she berated herself, “he isn’t even aware of that choice. You’ve lied for so long about your soulmate, he’s not bound to believe you now.” For what felt like the thousandth time today, Sansa was yet again crying. 

This time, ugly sobs erupted from within her and she left them flow unchecked. All the emotions kept hidden these past years rushed eagerly forth, overwhelming her. Unfettered at last, she weeped, caught in the bittersweet torment of her first love.

When the pain in her chest grew too strong, she rolled onto her side, eyes tightly closed. With the passing of time, her cries tapered off and she could only find the force to sniffle weakly. 

The crushed fragrant grasses beneath her suddenly reminded Sansa of the long afternoons she’d spent as a child playing in the fields, hiding behind haystacks and trying not to giggle during hide-and-go seek games. In those days, Jon’d had the uncanny ability to always root her out no matter her hiding place. Then he’d swing her up into his arms, making her shriek with delight. Sansa would open her arms and pretend she was a bird catching flight towards the sky.

She’d always loved Jon, even before seeing his face appear in her looking-glass. 

So then what if Sansa was a second choice! Ygritte had gone away and Jon hadn’t yet followed her to Ireland. Feeling probably dutiful towards the Starks who’d taken him in as a foundling and provided for him during his tender years, he still lingered at Winterfell. But there was no soulmark on his body; Sansa could still have a fighting chance.

But how to know if their fates might still be intertwined! 

Soulmates are magic, Cersei Baratheon whispered in her ear and Sansa knew the answer at once.

Quickly, she searched for the sun’s travel in the sky and saw that midday loomed. She had no minutes to waste. Climbing the hill, up towards Winterfell, she started gathering stalks of Lady’s Bedstraw. Her agile fingers pinched and threaded, gathering the yellow blooms in the shape of a crown. She was singing as she worked, the way the Ritual demanded she do, a simple folk song about a girl going to meet her beloved.

When she reached her rose garden, the flower circlet was already finished. Now, she only had to throw it onto the roof under which her soulmate slept. If it caught and held, it signified their love was foretold and would only grow stronger day by day. If it fell, well, the meaning was obvious.

Like all grooms, Jon resided one floor above the stables so Sansa made her way slowly towards the back courtyard. 

There was no one around, so Sansa took a long hard look at the problematic structure. It rose implacably more than twenty feet above the ground. There was no way such a throw would be in her reach. 

How did people manage it in this day and age, she asked herself, vexed with the seeming impossibility of the situation. The Ritual clearly came from ancient times, when houses meant smaller dwellings. But Sansa wouldn’t give up so easily, and so she turned around the courtyard, seeking out a solution. 

It came in the guise of a tree. The Ritual didn’t say anything about her feet being grounded when the throw was undertaken. Sansa stared for a long minute at the height and girth of the old elm extending its limbs towards the stables. 

She’d been a decent climber as a child, she tried to reassure herself as she placed her hands on the rough bark and began her ascent. The skirts of her dress kept slowing Sansa down and she cursed herself silently for not having secured them before she was up in the air. 

She was already out of breath when she reached the first fully-developed branch. She didn’t dare look down but she knew she wasn’t high enough. She only had one chance for the throw so she continued her climb, a caterpillar inching forward.

Having finally reached the desired branch, Sansa appreciated the separating distance while playing with the floral coronet she’d worn around her left wrist. She brought it to her lips, kissed a bloom and then she put all her heart behind it and threw it loose. 

At the same moment, unbalanced by her sudden forceful moment, she felt her body slide away from her seat on the tree. Sansa fell. On her way down, meeting the lowest branch, she caught onto it, arms stretched painfully by the effort, her feet left dangling in the open air. 

Wincing in pain, she took a moment to slowly breathe in and out. Now, she was really done for. How would she get out of this? And, worst of all, she hadn’t even seen where her offering had landed.

“Sansa, what in the Heavens?” She heard the scared shouts coming from below and she nearly weeped in relief. It was Jon’s voice, Jon who had come to her rescue. 

“Sansa, listen to me, you need to let go of that branch.” Sansa shook her head weakly, but didn’t dare speak; all her strength was spent on just holding on. 

“Sansa, you know I would never let you fall,” her would-be saviour persevered. “These arms have never failed you, have they? Please, sweeting, have a little faith in me.” 

Cersei Baratheon’s face flashed before her, and her words rang in Sansa’s ears: “You just need to have faith.”

She let go of the branch and she screamed for Jon for the few heartbeats it took her to fall down. He caught her.

They both tumbled to the ground, their bodies intertwining, their breaths mingling, their eyes locked on one another. Jon held a trembling hand to her brow, then hesitantly smoothed it down her cheek until it reached the corner of her mouth. Sansa had the sudden fierce desire to kiss his thumb and she didn’t fight it. Jon’s eyes darkened as he stared wonderingly at her face. 

“If you had truly fallen out of that tree,” he said, “Sansa Stark, I would’ve wrung your pretty little neck. What in the Heavens possessed you do to do such an unwise thing?”

With a cry of dismay, she frantically turned to look at the stables roof, Jon’s arms around her shifting to accommodate her but not letting go. She caught sight of her flower crown and felt her heart swell with joy in her chest. 

It held, it held, it held!

**Author's Note:**

> The Rituals mentioned in the story are inspired by a mix of European beliefs about young girls who want to "see" their meant ones before the marriage.
> 
> Chercherie does not exist as a real word, I know, I know. Here it's meant to be the French equivalent of searching (for one's soulmate), only because I loved the play on words: cher, chérie, French words meaning dear one (male and female forms).
> 
> Thank you for reading the story and I hope you liked it!


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